This is the first of a series of posts exploring some of the ways theentertainment industry reinforces dominant (dispsitionist) conceptionsof the human animal.

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blue-background-small.jpgWikipedia defines the fundamental attributionerror as "the tendency for people to over-emphasize dispositional, orpersonality-based, explanations for behaviors observed in others whileunder-emphasizing situational explanations." Since identifying it inthe late 1960s, social scientists have added significantly to theirunderstanding of the gap between why we behave as we do and why wethink we behave as we do. We think we make choices based on theconfluence of internal forces including our thinking, our preferring,and our willing – add a dash of personality, a pinch of character, asplash of the supernatural, and you have the key components for humanbehavior.

Science indicates, quite to the contrary, that those components arewidely shared fictions. After thousands of studies and experiments,what becomes clear is that that the fundamental attribution errorunderstates the vastness of that gap between perception and reality.We humans (particularly of the American variety) are more or lessclueless regarding what is moving us. That is, the "situational"forces are far more numerous and subtle than we ever imagined.Similarly, the dispositionist reasons we offer or conjure up generallyreflect our attempts to spin or make sense of our actions. We givereasons in an effort to make "reasonable" what often isn't. We are, touse the jargon, situational characters caught in a dispositionistmindset and culture.

Where does this gorge between who we are and who we imagine ourselvesto be come from? That dispositionist person schema has countlesssources – including its own self-fulfilling effects on perception andconstrual. But one of the key tributaries from which thedispositionist river of individualism, personality, character, andchoice are fed is the entertainment industry.rocky-balboa1.jpg

The December and January holiday box office is illustrative, with twoof the more popular films, Rocky Balboa ($60 million gross) and ThePursuit of Happyness ($124 million gross–10th highest among filmsreleased in 2006), furnishing classic dispositional themes. Indeed, asthe Rocky Balboa website promo announces: "The Greatest Underdog Storyof Our Time . . . Is Back for One Final Round." Now in his 50s, Rockyovercomes age, and the doubts and advice of everyone he knows,respects, and loves to take on (and, in effect, beat) the far younger,faster, stronger heavyweight champion of the world. And how, you mightask, does he manage this impossible feat? The answer is simple: anunwillingness to be moved by situation or, put differently, atenacious will and unflinching disposition. In a speech to his son,Rocky himself explains his success (and, by implication, the successand failure others) with these spirit-rousing words:

The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very rough, meanplace . . . and no matter how tough you think you are, it'll alwaysbring you to your knees and keep you there, permanently . . . if youlet it. You or nobody ain't never gonna hit as hard as life. But itain't about how hard you hit . . . it's about how hard you can gethit, and keep moving forward . . . how much you can take, and keepmoving forward. If you know what you're worth, go out and get whatyou're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit.

We have an unlimited appetite that inspirational, dispositionistmessage, and the entertainment industry doesn't tire of serving it up.The Fox News reviewer calls that speech "The most poignant andultimately important scene in this humble film." "That speech alone isworth the admission to `Rocky Balboa' and makes the conclusion to the30-year journey that Stallone let us share in worth the wait." That'ssaying something, particularly when you remember some of the earliermovies in the series.

Not feeling sufficiently inspired? Take a stroll to screen number 7.There you will find Chris Gardner, in The Pursuit of Happyness,dishing out a heaping helping of the same message. Looking over thecityscape with his four(ish)-year-old son, he admonishes:

You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can't do somethingthemselves, they wanna tell you that you can't do it.You wantsomething? Go get it. Period.

Nothing new here. Rocky powers through the steaming streets ofPhiladelphia while Gardner sprints the hilly boulevards of SanFrancisco. Balboa is figuratively hit by a truck (heavyweight championMason Dixon) in the ring, and gets up to keep fighting round afterround. What drive! What a will! What a dixon-hits-balboa.jpgstrongjaw! Gardner is literally knocked out of his shoes by a car. Still,for the sake of his dream – becoming a stockbroker – he jumps up andruns shoeless (but otherwise apparently fine) back to the "highlycompetitive" internship program at Dean Witter, as if nothinghappened. What commitment! What character! What strong socks!

Both characters earn their success with more than simply pit-bulldetermination. They use their heads and exploit special trainingtechniques to outsmart their less driven, less hungry competitors.Rocky's coach, "Duke," sums it up this way:

Duke: To beat this guy, you need speed. You don't have any. Yourknees are weak so no hard running. You've got neck arthritis andcalcium deposits in most of your joints, so sparring is out.

. . .

Duke: So what we'll be callin' on, is good old-fashioned bluntforce trauma. Horse power. Heavy duty cast iron pile drivin' punchesthat will have to hurt so much it'll rattle his ancestors. Everytimeyou hit him with a shot, it's got to feel like he tried kissing theexpress train.

Gardner is no less resourceful, though perhaps a little lessinspiring. To maximize his success as a glorified, cold-calling phonesolicitor, hepursuit-of-happyness2.jpg discovers he can save eightminutes per day by not hanging up the phone (vintage, 1970s) on thereceiver – while his less motivated cohorts piss away seconds per callby lazily placing the handset onto the phone stirrups and then liftingthe handset again. How does he pull this ingenious trick off? Gardnercalls on his index finger to press the disconnect button while thehandset stays firmly ensconced between shoulder and ear. Talk aboutusing your head.

From wash-up to Heavyweight Champion of the World to "has been" andback. From broke and unpaid phone solicitor to multimillionairestockbroker. Rock bottom to American dream. Rags to riches! Pleasetell me another.

Turns out, a "feel good" movie is one that assures us that we are whowe want to believe we are — in control of our destiny no matter oursituation. You want something? Go out and get what you're worth. Goget it. Period.

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The next post in this series will explore whether, if anything, themessage of those movies has anything to do with how we conceive of lawand policy.

In Part I of this series, we described how Americans pursue happinessby watching heroes like Rocky Balboa and Chris Gardner pursue theirs.We spend $10 per ticket and $8 per popcorn bucket to watchmore-or-less fictional stories of the downtrodden rise up throughsheer force of will and good life choices. Feels very satisfying.

We have an insatiable appetite for such stories, in part because theytell us what we want to hear: anyone in this country can go from thebottom to the top. No Excuse BookThe Horatio Alger story continues tosell and sell and sell, because, to paraphrase P.T. Barnum, there is adispositionist situational character born every minute.

But does this sort of entertainment influence how we perceive law andpolicy? Absolutely.

The basic scripts for Rocky Balboa and Pursuit of Happyness—just likethose for Rudy, Radio, Racing Stripes, Race the Sun, Raise Your Voice,and that's just the "r"s—are the also the foundational scriptsemployed by most influential policymakers and legal theorists today.Laws, we've been told, particularly since Ronald Reagan occupied theOval Office, should facilitate choice – placing the individual incharge, making the consumer sovereign, and letting power andresponsibility fall to the person, while minimizing the role of thecollectivist, paternalistic, and intermeddling "regulator" or "socialprogram." When the state and its laws simply facilitate individualchoice, we can be confident that those among us who are holding thelong straw drew well, while those stuck with the short straw chose badly.

So how does dispositionism explain inequality, poverty, and thedisappearing middle class? Easy: the less equal lack the will, thecommitment, the character, the drive, and the heart, of a champion.The more equal pursue their happiness with the eye of the tiger. Whatabout credit problems that seem increasingly to plague so manyAmericans? No problem: people lack the financial discipline to spendwisely. If they would stop wasting their paycheck on plasmatelevisions and $150 sneaker, maybe they'd have enough to pay theirrent. Okay, but whatTime Magazine Cover The War on Welfare Mothersabout the increasing national girth and the ill-health effectsassociated with the obesity epidemic. Again, the answer can be foundin "choice" — specifically the good choices of the thin (but not toothin) and the bad choices of the couch potatoes, video game players,and everyone else too lazy to choose healthy.

Take any inequity or social problem, ask a dispostionist to explainits existence, and you will almost certainly receive astraightforward, pleasantly simplistic, choice-based explanation thatattributes most of the blame to the disadvantaged individual — or hisparents. And it is this perception of the person that has propelledmuch of the late twentieth century's policy scripts of more marketsand less regulation, more freedom and lower taxes, more individualismand less collectivism and state.

This person-schema/law-schema connection is explicit in both Rocky andThe Pursuit of Happyness. Consider that Rocky Balboa's biggest singleobstacle isn't his age, or his willingness to train, or even thesincere doubts of his loved ones. No, it's those pesky governmentbureaucrats who, at least initially, deny him his license to fight andthus his "right" to pursue his idiosyncratic version of personalhappiness. In a verbal counterpunch that draws as many cheers fromtheater-goers as the actual (fake) fighting does, Rocky delivers thesepolicy-oriented "hurtin' bombs":

Rocky Balboa: Yo, don't I got some rights? Boxing Commissioner: What rights do you think you're referring to? Rocky Balboa: Rights, like in that official piece of paper theywrote down the street there? Boxing Commissioner: That's the Bill of Rights. Rocky Balboa: Yeah, yeah. Bill of Rights. Don't it say somethingabout going after what makes you happy? Boxing Commissioner: No, that's the pursuit of happiness. Butwhat's your point? Rocky Balboa: My point is I'm pursuing something and nobody lookstoo happy about it. Boxing Commissioner: But . . . we're just looking out for yourinterests. Rocky Balboa: I appreciate that, but maybe you're looking out foryour interests just a little bit more. . . . I mean maybe you're doingyour job but why you gotta stop me from doing mine? Cause if you'rewilling to go through all the battling you got to go through to getwhere you want to get, who's got the right to stop you? I mean maybesome of you guys got something you never finished, something youreally want to do, something you never said to someone, something . .. and you're told no, even after you paid your dues? Who's got theright to tell you that, who? Nobody! It's your right to listen to yourgut, it ain't nobody's right to say no after you earned the right tobe where you want to be and do what you want to do! . . . You know,the older I get the more things I gotta leave behind, that's life. Theonly thing I'm asking you guys to leave on the table . . . is what'sright.

Booya!

Chris Gardner is even more pro-individual and anti-state.Unsurprisingly, given the movie's title, Gardner weaves thedispostionist language of the Declaration of Independence throughouthis autobiographical voice-overs. At one point he declares:

It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson,the declaration of independence, and our right to life, liberty, andthe pursuit of happiness, and I remember thinking; how did he know toput the pursuit part in there. That maybe happiness is something wecan only pursue, and maybe actually we can never have it, no matterwhat. How did he know that?

And what is Gardner's biggest challenge in his personal, privatepursuit? Is it when his wife, the mother of his young son, leaves him?Nope. Is it when he has no place to sleep and spends the night on thefloor of the subway men's room with his son's head on his lap and hismeager possessions around them? Try again. Is it when he shows up to ajob interview with Dean Witter disheveled and dirty, after spending anight in jail? Uh uh. When he is hit by a car? Not even close—just theopposite, actually, we watch him intrepidly bounce right back up inthe middle of traffic telling the despondent car driver who hit him tonot worry.

No, Chris Gardner's announces that his lowest point is when the I.R.S.seizes $600 of "my money!" from "my bank account" for taxes longunpaid. "How can they do that?," he asks.

The answer to that rhetorical question can be found in the movie'score value: don't begrudge the wealthy for their wealth, accept thatit is earned and deserved, and go pursue it for yourself at fullspeed; when you face obstacles, as everyone must, don't make excusesand don't ask the government to bail you out. In that vein, the film'sstark contrasts between extravagance and squalor, between smiling andsquabbling, between "me being stupid" and "happyness" are not intendedto raise questions about whether there is something wrong in thesystem. It is intended to assure us that the system is fine. Thequestion is whether the individual wants something bad enough. Period.

The Federal Mafia BookNot convinced? Just consider how the movie's"keep yo hands out my pockets" anti-taxation sensibility is neverreconciled with the clear absence of shelters for the homeless (atleast two of whom are portrayed as mighty blameless), with the publictransportation system, deficient as it may be, on which Gardner andson so heavily rely for both transport and shelter, and with theabsence of social welfare programs that might have saved a marriageand subsidized the budget-busting childcare.

No, The Pursuit of Happyness is about recognizing that the rich andthe poor are equally deserving of their condition. That's true eventhough Gardner doesn't mind stealing a $20 fare from a desperate taxidriver but knows never ever to ask for a single penny from the wealthybusinessman who actually accrued the fare. Similarly, Gardner emptieshis wallet to loan the senior partner in the Dean Witter office,Martin Frohm, $5. The wealth-dripping boss has no trouble asking formoney, but Gardner understands that he must be silent about the factthat the loan will break him. Meanwhile, Gardner is repeatedly singledout by his immediate supervisor to fetch coffee and doughnuts, parkhis car, and tend to those menial tasks suitable for the the onlyblack intern in the program. Again, Gardner understands the implicitrules of success: don't complain, don't even flinch, in fact, don'teven notice; just work that much harder. Getting the job means gettingalong. Getting along means going along.

"You want something? Go get it. Period."

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The next post in this series looks at a few of the situationistlessons of Rocky and The Pursuit of Happyness.

rocky.jpgIn Part I of this series, we described how Americans pursuehappiness by watching heroes like Rocky Balboa and Chris Gardnerpursue theirs. In Part II, we examined why the basic scripts for filmslike Rocky Balboa and Pursuit of Happyness–placing the individual incharge, making him sovereign, and letting power and responsibilityfall to that person, while minimizing the role of the paternalisticand intermeddling "regulator" or "social program"–are the samefoundational scripts employed by most influential policymakers andlegal theorists today.

While these scripts are compelling, intuitive, and often affirming,social science indicates that they are upside-down. These scripts missthe power of the situation and how our schemas are primed to find (orimagine) causation and disposition in others' behaviors and attitudes.

But there is no need to exhaustively review the social psychologicalevidence to make this point. All we have to do is go back to thosesame two films to see how, even by each movie's own account, thebigger part of the story is about luck and situational forces thathave little to do with the main character's choices!

Remember back to the original Rocky — before it was known as Rocky I.Recall the setup. Rocky's boxing career was done, finished, neverhaving even reached the level of a has-been. Rock had hit bottom andfound himself firmly anchored to a "never was" and more clearly,"never will be" status. Although Rocky may have shown flashes oftalent as a boxer in previous years, and although he had a strong jawand a never-broken nose when the story begins, he was also asecond-rate club fighter who had just been thrown out of his locker,and his future seemed more intertwined with breaking legs for asmall-time loan shark than with bustin' face for the world title.

philly-market2.jpg Rocky was without assets, without family, withoutreliable friends, and without his youth. His best friend was amanipulative and self-serving alcoholic. Completely by fluke – owingnothing whatsoever to Rocky's will, choices, preferences, orcharacter, Apollo Creed, the world champion, arrives in Philadelphiato take on a challenger, who, at the last moment backs out because ofan injury. It was to be a bicentennial bout, and canceling it wasgoing to cost a lot of dough. Creed wanted a substitute – some localguy who the city might get behind but who posed no real threat. Hethumbed through a book looking at names of local boxers and pickedRocky for one reason — a reason that had nothing to do with our hero'stalent, drive, intelligence, or merit. Creed selected Rocky simplybecause of his nickname, the "Italian Stallion." The opportunity is asmuch the product of Rocky's hard work as a lottery winner's take canbe attributed to good choices — more or less random luck.

Rocky MeatBut Rocky's good fortune didn't end there. When theopportunity arose, Rocky's other options were bleak. At that moment,he had one foot into a dead-end life of low-level organized crime andthuggery. Had his alternative career options been more promising, thetiger's eye may have remained dormant.

Pauly, who as friends go, left much be desired. But he happened towork at the slaughterhouse where Rock could spar against a warehousefull of bovine carcases. Rocky was also blessed to have an experiencedtrainer and manager, Mickey, who had immense knowledge of the sportand — owing to his age and his own star-crossed fighting career —something to prove. Mickey's lessons were integral in Rocky's battlewith Creed.

Other sources of luck were Rocky's idiosyncratic physical endowments.As five movies would demonstrate, Rocky had an unbreakable jaw.Rocky's lackluster boxing skills rocky-apollo.jpgmeant that morepunches landed, but his steel jaw absorbed blows that would haveflattened most fighters. Similarly Rock was a south-paw, a factor thateven Creed's trainer worried about and that Mickey exploited.Fighters, if the movie is to be believed, expect power from the rightside, and are taken by surprise when hammered from the southside. Itwas also plain luck that this aging pugilist didn't pull a groinrunning steps, or break a finger glovelessly pounding cow cadavers ,or otherwise injure himself from that unorthodox, treacherous, andfull-on training regimen.

Rocky was also extremely lucky that his opponent, Creed, was himselfsituationally constrained — preoccupied as he was with the businessside of the faux fight and unconcerned with the challenge Rocky posed.It's a truism that being underestimated by one's opponent is anenormous advantage.

Rocky and Adrian

Most important, at the very moment of Creed's serendipitous selection,Rocky's wooing of Adrian was just paying off. The growing mutualadmiration between those two quirky and lonesome souls gave Rockysomeone to impress, someone to show that he was more than he seemed.And as their love developed, Adrian provided Rocky confidence,inspiration, and someone who would be there for him win or lose.

In short, Rocky had all upside and no downside. Rocky's situationcreated his disposition, not the other way around.

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In our next post in this series, we will discuss the situationalsources of Chris Gardner's success.